Fittingly enough, Ahmet Ertegun's last day in good health was spent doing what he was born to do—appreciate awesome music. 

The recording industry pioneer was backstage with the Rolling Stones Oct. 29 at the Beacon Theater in Manhattan as the British rockers prepared to play a private concert for Bill Clinton's birthday when he hit his head in a fall.  

Ertegun fell into a coma soon afterward and died Thursday, his family at his side, at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center as a result of his injuries. He was 83. 

Ertegun will be buried in his native Turkey and a memorial service will be held after New Year's in New York, said Bob Kaus, a spokesman for Ertegun's family and Atlantic Records, the label Ertegun started in 1947 with Herb Abramson that eventually laid claim to Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and a host of other iconic names. 

"Ahmet Ertegun was a true visionary whose life's work had a profound impact on our culture's musical landscape, as well as around the world," said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, in a statement. 

"His contributions to popular music are everlasting and his incredible accomplishments will continue to be celebrated for many years to come. This is truly a sad day for the music industry and for music lovers everywhere, but his legacy will shine on forever." 

It was Ertegun who helped turn Atlantic, once a small indie brand founded with the help of a $10,000 loan, into an industry powerhouse. Warner Seven-Arts bought the label in 1967, but Ertegun stayed on, continuing to make albums even as the company changed hands again two years later. Atlantic is currently under the Warner Music Group umbrella. 

In fact, Ertegun remained a major player until recently, reducing his corporate responsibilities in 1996 but remaining a familiar face on the club and concert circuit. He underwent triple bypass surgery in 2001, but still went into his office almost daily to listen to new tunes. 

The Istanbul native, also known for the close relationships he maintained with his label's artists over the years, had said that he had been a music lover since he was nine years old and his brother took him to see Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway at London's Palladium Theatre.  

"My father was a diplomat who was ambassador to Switzerland, France and England before he became ambassador to the United States, and we lived in all those countries and we always had music in the house, and a lot of it was a kind of popular music, and we heard a lot of jazz," Ertegun told the Associated Press once. "By the time we came to Washington, we were collecting records and we amassed a collection of some 25,000 blues and jazz records." 

This early influence was evident in the initial days of Atlantic, when the label produced mainly a combination of blues, jazz and swing. Ertegun's appreciation of rhythm-and-blues made Atlantic a natural home for early rock-and-rollers, although he reportedly missed his chance to sign Elvis Presley when the "Hound Dog" singer was on the market. 

But while Atlantic was rooted in the fundamentals of jazz and blues and—with the addition of artists like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, John Coltrane and Otis Redding—R&B and soul, Ertegun knew that a major label doesn't define itself by one sound (or a handful of extremely related sounds). 

Atlantic eventually expanded to include pop and rock stars ranging from ABBA and the Bee Gees to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Cream and Led Zeppelin. But, Ertegun never forgot where Atlantic's proverbial soul was. 

"We had some pop music—we had Bobby Darin…and we developed other pop artists such as Sonny and Cher and Bette Midler and so on," Ertegun told the AP. "But we had been most effective that set a style as purveyors of African-American music. And we were the kings of that until the arrival of Motown Records [in 1959], which was long after we started."

Ertegun was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987; in 1995, the Cleveland-based museum announced that its main exhibition hall would be named after "one of the most significant figures in the modern recording industry."